Hooman Majd Considers Israeli Policy Toward Iran | Big Think

Hooman Majd Considers Israeli Policy Toward Iran

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The writer says a behind-the-scenes war with Iran is unlikely, though a high degree of espionage is not.

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Hooman Majd:

Hooman Majd was born in Tehran, Iran in 1957, and lived abroad from infancy with his family who were in the diplomatic service. He attended boarding school in England and college in the United States, and stayed in the U.S. after the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Majd had a long career in the entertainment business before devoting himself to writing and journalism full-time. He worked at Island Records and Polygram Records for many years, with a diverse group of artists, and was head of film and music at Palm Pictures, where he produced The Cup and James Toback's Black and White.

He has written for GQ, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Observer, Interview, and Salon, and has been a regular contributor to The Huffington Post from its inception. A contributing editor at Interview magazine, he lives in New York City and travels regularly back to Iran.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: Is Israel waging a secret war against Iran

Majd: I don’t know if that’s true, I mean, Israel… Israel has… had a strange relationship with Iran. During the Iran-Iraq war, Israel was actually giving… secretly giving arms to Iran to… it’s like, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” on that basis and for my understanding, what I understand from the Israelis that I’ve spoken to, I think that… the Israeli journalist I’ve spoken to and some Iranian-Israelis who… the Iranians who live in Israel, the Israeli government really doesn’t think Iran is there… is an existential threat to Israel, they don’t believe that Iran is going to build a new and drop it on Tel Aviv or Jerusalem it would kill way more Palestinians than it would kill Israelis. Secondly, it would invite a retaliation of the sort, I mean, they’re not suicidal, they’re not looking to wipe Iran off the face of the map but this question of power, Israel is definitely weary and concerned about Iran’s power because you have this country that at least rhetorically you’re saying is against Israel, against the existence of Israel is supporting a one state solution when everyone else is supporting a 2 state solution, Iran is the only country that is supporting Hamas and is one state solution. Syria is a little bit different because Syria’s main concern with Israel is the Golden Heights and their security with Israel, the security range… whatever security range they make with Israel but Iran is a different country, it’s standing up and saying, “We are the one country that is standing up to Israel,” and if Iran were to have a military that is capable of challenging Israel which it doesn’t have right now and that would mean that if it were to ever to posses nuclear weapons that were deliverable and usable then Israel’s stature as the sole superpower in the region would be challenged by a country that is not going to… that is not subservient to America, at least does not take orders from America and would challenge them on the Palestinian issues so that is a grave concern to Israel, I think, Israel would like to see Iran weakened however they can, it weakens Hamas, it weakens anybody who challenges Israel but a secret war, I mean, yes, I’m sure that Israel is doing all kinds of things to try to either sabotage the nuclear program, sabotage the revolutionary guards, sabotage Iran’s military, I’m sure it has a vast network of espionage in Iran, much, much better than ours if we have any network at all. So I’m sure there’s that kind of thing going… and by the vice versa, you know, Iranians have probably a network.